this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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This is not entirely wrong, but the OP is about garbage and environmental pollution with it. It's a fact that glass is basically just fancy shaped sand and turns back into normal sand with almost zero side effects, if it reaches the environment instead of being recycled.
If one makes glass with renewable energy (green hydrogen, for example) and the shipping is done with renewable energy (e.g. electric trucks), even disposable glass bottles become greener than plastics made from mineral oil can ever be.
Hmm, if we're saying everything is done with green energy, could plastic bottles be carbon negative? Make the plastic from algie or bean feed stock so that it acts as a form of carbon capture.
Makes sense to me, but there's still the whole microplastics issue... But honestly, at this point, anything we can do to keep fossil fuels in the ground is a win in my book. I'd love to see us go down that path for plastic needs that are both necessary and supremely difficult to replace with other materials (like medical and laboratory applications), and stop using plasitic entirely for everything else.
if it's recycled, maybe. if it decomposes, no, because the carbon will escape again.
Plastic takes thousands of years to decompose, so wouldn't it act as a carbon sink until then?
That is a bit outdated and only true for plastic buried in landfills. In the ocean, for example, the half life is a lot less and Comamonas testosteroni a bacteria commonly found in wastewater can break down plastic to turn it into a food source.